Show is a low-budget feature film produced in
Danville, Illinois. Itís a drama about a close-knit theater
group whose relationships are tested when the stranger hired to
videotape their latest show insinuates himself into their lives.

Public Premiere (2/10/06).
The public premiere of Show will be Friday, February 24 and
Saturday, February 25, 2006 at the Danville Public Library, 319 N. Vermilion St.
in Danville, Illinois. Showtimes are 8 p.m. both nights, and admission
is free. Though the film is not rated, it contains adult situations
and language and is recommended for mature audiences. DVD copies of
the film will be available for sale at the screenings for $10.

A private premiere for cast, crew, and invited guests was held
at the Danville Public Library on Saturday, December 10, 2005 at 8 p.m.,
followed by a reception at the home of Mike and Leslie Boedicker.

DONE!!!(11/21/05).
Show is finally
finished. Color correction and sound mixing took much longer than I'd
anticipated, but the DVD authoring went quickly. I burned a test DVD on November 18 and will soon begin
making copies and designing DVD cover art. A premiere for cast, crew
and invited guests will be held in December, and public screenings will
hopefully be held early next year.

A Brief History:Show has been in production a
long time -- a REALLY long time when you trace its origins. It started
in the fall of 1990 as a 30-minute short script called Voyeur, written
when I was a graduate student in the M.A. Film & Video program at American
University in Washington, D.C. The basic story and characters were the
same as in Show, but the setting was a college campus, not a community
theater. From 1993-94, while living in Binghamton, NY, I took on a
collaborator, Brian Wilson, and we expanded the Voyeur script to
feature length. At that point I intended to produce it myself, shooting
on Super-8 film with editing and distribution on video. The proposed
budget was far beyond my means, however, even with a low-end film stock like
Super-8 and a measly shooting ratio of 2:1. Digital Video (DV) did not
exist at the time, and professional analog video equipment was prohibitively
expensive. So I shelved the project and started writing feature film
scripts on speculation, never thinking I'd produce Voyeur.

Fast-forward seven years,
and I'm working
as a librarian in Danville, Illinois. One day in 2001, I mentioned Voyeur
to a library patron -- a retired cinematographer -- who asked if I ever
considered shooting the project on DV. Though I was a broadcasting major
in college and had shot lots of analog video, I hadn't kept up with changing
technology in the field. As he told me more, and as I did preliminary
research, I became very excited by the possibilities of DV.
Equipment that would have cost tens of thousands of dollars in 1990 could now
be had for a fraction of that price, and could deliver even better
results. Lower prices also meant equipment could be purchased instead of
rented, so we wouldn't be rushed during production and postproduction.
By this point I had also lived in Danville long enough to see some excellent
acting on local stages. Since Voyeur was always intended as a
character-driven piece, the quality of acting was even more important than
technical considerations. In short, with all these new options
available, I realized we could finally proceed with the project. I called Brian Wilson, now conveniently
living nearby in Chicago, and we began revisiting and rewriting Voyeur, working mostly by
emails and long phone calls, and sometimes by visits. Several drafts
later, the script evolved as Show, but these drafts only
marked the beginning of the changes. The rehearsals, shooting and
editing changed the story still further, and when I showed Brian the rough cut, he commented on how far the story had come. Now,
after four years (or is it 15?) and
lots of time, energy, and money, Show is finally
finished.

Final Cut Editing Finished(5/31/05).
After lots of cutting, trimming, and obsessing, the final cut editing is
finished. The film now runs 80 minutes (down from the rough cut's 91
minutes). Pianist Eric Simonson did a terrific job recording the Bach
score. There are now three tasks remaining before the film is truly
finished: scene-by-scene color correction, final sound mix, and outputting
the project to DVD ("authoring"). Each of these steps is
quite detail-oriented and meticulous, but I'm still aiming for a premiere
this summer. Thanks once again, everyone, for being patient
during the never-ending post-production phase!

Score Being Recorded(2/29/05).
Eric Simonson, composer and music instructor at Danville Area Community
College, is recording the film's score (piano selections by J.S. Bach) as
I continue working on the final cut.

Rough Cut Finished!(9/19/04).
It clocked in at 91 minutes. A screening will be arranged soon for
cast & crew before editing begins on the final cut. Thank you,
everyone, for your patience during the long post-production phase.

Editing Begins (3/13/04). Editing began several
weeks ago with logging of the footage. Because all 26 hours of dailies
will not fit on the computer at once, the film will be edited in
thirds.

Editing to Begin Soon(1/28/04). To make a long
and frustrating story
as short as possible: I bought the Macintosh computer
back in November and immediately started learning the editing software
(Final Cut Pro 4). Soon after I began, the computer starting
having problems at boot-up. After a dozen calls to Apple Tech
Support and as many tedious software updates failed to
solve the problem, I took the computer in for servicing. They had
it a month and could find no hardware problems, so the issue is most
likely in the operating system ("Panther," Apple's latest). The
boot-up problem shouldn't prevent me from editing, but it's still annoying as hell to have
this happen on a brand-new
system -- and a Mac no less. Currently I'm acting in a local
play, and once that wraps (this coming weekend), I'll get started
editing. More updates will follow on this site, so please check back.

Shooting Wraps!(7/28/03). Shooting
concluded on July 27, with
the exception
of some minor pick-up shots. We shot 26 hours of footage over 3
months
of weekends for a planned 80-90 minute film. The remaining
pick-up
shots should be completed in a few weeks. Editing will commence
this
fall.

Where was the film shot?Show was filmed in locations around Danville, Illinois, including
the Kathryn Randolph Theater (home of the Red Mask
Players).
How will the film be distributed?
The film is intended as a direct-to-video production. Theatrical
distribution
deals are very difficult to obtain and usually require either star
casting
or favorable reception at recognized film festivals. We do intend to
pursue
the festival circuit with Show.

On what format was Show produced?
Show was produced on DV (digital video), with editing
and postproduction performed on a nonlinear computer editing system.